


A walk around the block

by airdeari



Series: self-indulgent aoilight within [11]
Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Squabbling, Unlikely Morphogenetic Nonsense, mutually supportive boyfriends, rated M for My boys cannot stop making sex jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:05:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8812546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: “Hey,” Aoi called from the bedroom door, a whining tone to his voice. “Let’s go for a walk.”
A vaguely holiday-themed story about love and trust.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I made a terrible mistake and didn’t sign up for ZEcret Santa because I thought I would be too busy. (To be fair, I am in fact too busy, but I’ve never let things like “responsibilities” and “obligations” and “the unyielding passage of time” get in my way before.) So here is a present for you all. unless you don’t like aoilight. in which case. well. Happy holidays, anyway.  
> This is shamelessly inspired by a bunch of headcanons [sunquail](http://sunquail.tumblr.com/) posted in the middle of November that bothered my brain all through NaNoWriMo. Then I just kind of... shoved every headcanon I have about these poor kids inside
> 
> **CONTENT WARNINGS:**
> 
>   1. i hate choosing not to use content warnings, but tagging for graphic violence and character death would look weird on a fluffy piece about a couple of lovers going for a walk. it's quick, but it's there. damn morphogenetic boyfriends.
>   2. there's a brief encounter with a homophobic stranger, with slurs, to increase tension. If you wanna skip it, after you see Aoi say "Shh." hit ctrl+F and search for "Gayborhood" and just keep reading from there.
> 

> 
> (I just realized I don't know if "gayborhood" is a thing outside of Philly??? Let's all hope it will be by 2028.)

“Hey,” Aoi called from the bedroom door, a whining tone to his voice. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Light held his finger at the end of the word he had just parsed, lowered his book to his exposed stomach, and lifted his head from the pillow to gaze blankly at Aoi without opening his eyes.

“Please?” Aoi asked.

The word had a strange, novel sound in Aoi’s voice. Light was not sure he had heard Aoi ever say it before.

“It’s the middle of December,” Light stated.

“So put on a coat, you big baby. Didn’t you say you wanted me to take you shopping for Clover before Christmas?”

“I distinctly recall specifying that we not go out after five o’clock this close to the holidays.”

Aoi groaned. Light heard the soft thumps of his socked feet pattering against the floor with impatience.

“C’mon, Light,” he begged. “We’ve been in the house all day. I gotta get out.”

“Then I won’t keep you any longer,” Light replied, running his finger back over the last sentence to refresh his memory of where he had left off in his book.

“Would you quit being a stubborn piece of shit and get your nose out of a book for once in your goddamn life?”

So there was something wrong.

Light set aside his book, leaving it open to avoid spending time searching for his bookmark. He overcame the inertia keeping him in bed with the impulse imparted by Aoi’s desperate mood.

The bedroom door squeaked as it opened again. “Stop, don’t. I’ll go by myself,” Aoi grumbled.

“Aoi,” said Light, holding a hand in front of him as he headed towards the door and the sound of Aoi’s voice.

“Don’t just agree to this ’cuz I’m guilting you.” He caught Light’s advancing hand to signal him to stop moving, then pushed it away. “Stop it. Do whatever you want.”

“I want to make you happy a bit more than I want to be a stubborn piece of shit,” responded Light, reaching out for Aoi again.

“Jesus Christ. It’s not that important.” Aoi did not respond to his outstretched hand.

“I don’t have the energy to pick out clothes, however, so you’ll have to do that for me.”

Aoi sighed. As the foot is ticklish in its arch, so is the center of the palm, to a far lesser degree, and only by an experienced and unseen touch. Light snapped his hand back in surprise, then smiled. He heard Aoi move towards the closet.

“I suppose I’ll have to put on my arm, too,” he murmured.

“Fuck, no. Not if you don’t wanna,” Aoi said. “You’ll be wearing a coat anyway, no one’ll notice. Do whatever. Incoming.”

“Aoi, I only have one—”

The jeans hit Light’s only hand, which he had held out in anticipation of the throw. With a quick turn of his wrist, he caught them between the legs.

“You only need one,” Aoi replied.

“I appreciate your supportiveness, but you do understand that you’re going to have to button this for me.”

“Seriously? You unbuttoned my pants with your _teeth_ once.”

“If my mouth could reach my crotch, I would have no need of you altogether.”

“Do you need a fucking reminder who gives better head?”

Light jutted his hips forward as he waited with an unzipped, unbuttoned fly. “Perhaps.”

“ _Gay._ ” Aoi snapped the zipper up and secured the button.

He assigned Light both a sweater and a coat, because he knew that Light liked to be kept cozy when tired. The scarf was thick and perfumed with a feminine scent that was not one of Clover’s. The hat felt like the one that Light had pulled off of Aoi’s head last week to kiss his forehead in the foyer. He pulled a single glove onto his hand with his teeth and stored the other in his left pocket.

“Where are we headed?” Light asked.

“I dunno. Anyplace. You got somewhere you wanna go?”

“My bed.”

“I fucking _said_ you didn’t have to—”

“Aoi, I’m joking. And casually attempting to seduce you, but evidently that’s having no effect.”

“Less talking, more walking.”

Aoi rebuffed those and various other halfhearted advances all the way to the bottom of the stairwell. Light usually evoked some kind of reaction from Aoi with such humor, sometimes an equivalent joke in response, sometimes genuine discomfort (this, of course, was Light’s ultimate goal), but rarely indifference. Aoi’s mind was elsewhere. His face was fuzzy in Light’s mental image—he had white hair, a bit shaggy, sometimes spiked, and a sharp jawline, and his brows had an angle that probably made him look like he was always frowning—but his blue eyes were blank in that picture.

Cool air rushed up to greet their faces as soon as Aoi opened the door. Wind filled Light’s left sleeve past the elbow when the position of its mouth was in just the wrong spot. He tugged his hat over both ears, one at a time, and stuffed his empty sleeve into his pocket. It was certainly noticeable when it was flapping about.

“You ever been to that other park? The one south of Elm,” Aoi asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“Neat. Let’s go there. Left.”

Light removed his hand from his pocket and held it out, palm up. Aoi hit the sidewalk with the heels of his boots without taking it. His hand hanging by his side, Light followed the sound instead, which he always used to keep from stepping on the shoes  of someone holding his hand, anyway.

“How has your day been?” he asked.

Aoi took a moment to answer, because Light’s question was terribly transparent, and he had to decide whether or not he wanted to entertain the notion of going down this rabbit hole for the sake of pleasantries.

“It’s the first time I been outside, right now,” he said at last. “How’s that sound?”

“Ideal,” replied Light.

“Oh, shut _up_. You wouldn’t care if you’re stuck in the same room for nine hours, you don’t have to _see_ it.”

Light tried not to fixate on the length of time Aoi had chosen for his hyperbole.

“Makes me stir-crazy, stuffed up in the apartment all day,” he mumbled. “Stuffed up doin’ _work_. Day job work. Crosswalk, straight. Stuffed up lookin’ at stocks and tradin’ and talkin’ to clients.”

Aoi worked too hard. He operated best when stressed to maximum capacity. Every waking moment was spent in labor to one of his two taxing careers, if not both. Just this morning, he responded eagerly to business calls with stockholders while pacing about the room and sifting through Crash Keys’ latest influx of enemy intelligence, no doubt mentally conferring with Akane on the material.

“Once we bag this terrorist, I’m gonna sleep for a fuckin’ year,” he once groaned as he sank into the mattress at two in the morning, too exhausted to crawl under the blanket. “I’ll be sittin’ on a mountain we probably didn’t need, but we worked up just in case, and I can just sit on it for a li’l while. Just sit.”

It was difficult to talk numbers. His net worth, and that of Crash Keys, was in constant flux. They had what he called “enough.” He wanted them to have what he called “enough to do anything we need to, just in case.” So he worked himself to the bone.

“Then, you like going on walks for the visual stimulation?” Light asked.

“God, you’re one-hundred-percent just… trying to understand this right now, ain’t you,” Aoi sighed. “Like, this whole ‘going for a walk’ concept is that fuckin’ foreign to you. Turn left.”

“On the contrary. I have been known to amble without destination from time to time,” Light protested, lifting his nose. “I am simply interested in what _you_ find appealing about it.”

“Stop.”

Light halted. Aoi had led them down a quieter street. The only sound he could hear was Aoi’s footsteps continuing.

“No, you—” He yanked Light’s empty sleeve forward, dislodging it from the pocket. “I mean, stop doing that thing you always do for one fucking second, okay? Where you just ask all these questions and make it all personal and shit. Just… don’t, alright? Don’t. Not today.”

“Do I still get to ask what’s wrong?” Light said softly.

“ _Nothing’s_ wrong. I just need a walk. I’m fine.”

“Aoi, you tend to minimize—”

“Shut up.”

“You know I would gladly—”

“Shh.”

Light listened. He had not been paying attention to Aoi’s footwork; it had moved further away, to the right. In an attempt to read the situation, he stayed off to the left. Aoi tugged his elbow at the same time a warm mass banged into his left side, almost dislodging the socket plug from his residual arm.

He often joked that his sight was based on movement. A man standing quiet and still in the middle of the sidewalk was completely invisible to him. He should have guessed by the increased concentration of cigarette smoke in the air that they had come close to someone who might be loitering about. He opened his mouth to apologize.

“ _Watch_ it, faggot,” said a low voice.

The cigarette smoke became too strong to inhale without choking. Though closed, Light’s eyes watered.

He did not know whether it was out of pettiness or fear that the estimations flew through his head. The brunt of the weight of the hit came just below his shoulder, so the stranger was shorter than he. The softness of the impact could indicate either muscle or fat; it was too glancing a blow to differentiate, but the man was thickly built with one or the other. In order to win in a fight, Light would have to engage him to attempt the first blow, to generate his own momentum so that Light would have a chance of turning it against him.

Light kept walking. Aoi did not.

“He’s fucking _blind_ , asshole!” Aoi shouted back.

Indifferent, the stranger took slow, heavy steps in the opposite direction of Light’s motion. Light reached out to his right and found himself pushing against the buttoned side of Aoi’s wool coat. “Let it go, dear,” he said softly.

Only with a movement just shy of a shove was he able to coax Aoi into moving forward instead of backward. “Fucking piece of shit. I could kick his ass in a— _you_ could kick his ass,” he growled under his breath. “Fucking—just—when people are _that_ fucking _wrong_ , I just wanna fucking—”

“He wasn’t exactly wrong about my being a faggot.”

“ _He called you a—?!_ ”

Light braced his bent elbow at the level of Aoi’s waist and only barely caught him before he barreled back down the sidewalk to get himself injured and arrested.

“What color is my scarf?” Light asked to distract him, shepherding him forward with an arm imposed over his shoulders. “I’ve gathered it belongs to Akane.”

“It’s beige, it’s not… Cross on the right. It’s ’cuz your hair looks like shit in a beanie. You look like some kinda edgy film student who’d call himself ‘heteroflexible’ on a hookup app for gay dudes.”

“Yes, so you’ve mentioned at least three times since November.” The _heteroflexible_ part was a charming new addition to the insult. “Of course, you were the one who gave me this hat to wear.”

“What am I supposed to give you, Clover’s earmuffs? The fuzzy snow leopard-print ones?”

“I have just come up with an idea for a Christmas present.”

“Get your fuckin’ arm offa me or the whole street’s gonna call us faggots.”

There was a hint of malice in his words, though Light did not know whether it bled in from his lingering feelings towards the passing stranger or from his sour mood.

“Is that why you’ve refused my hand?” Light asked with a wry grin.

“It’s rush hour. Gayborhood gets too straight during rush hour.” He was either shaking his head vigorously or chattering his teeth as he sighed; the sound of the air rushing past his lips came in quick pulses. “Picked the street with _one_ person and it was _still_ a fuckin’ bigot. Hate this city.”

“You do not.”

“Don’t fight me on this right now.”

They both liked to be right. Light liked to be right by assembling facts and connecting them with logic so that he might convince others to see truths instead of opinions. He was similarly receptive to counterarguments constructed with different facts and different threads of logic. Aoi, on the other hand, liked the sense of righteousness, the feeling itself of being right. When he said something incorrect, Light itched to challenge him, but he had moods where truth would not reach him. He needed to be right, at least for now, just let him have this, give him a break.

Sometimes Light asked to touch Aoi’s face so that he could feel the weak, puffy skin under his eyes. He was so tired.

“You hate this city,” Light agreed, tongue in cheek.

“Don’t be smart about it.”

“You hate this city, and in addition, global warming is a hoax promoting a clean energy conspiracy to terminate American jobs.”

“Does your sassy little mouth ever shut the fuck up?”

Light listened for the presence of other footsteps, of which he could find none nearby, before he leaned close to Aoi and whispered, “Yes, when asked to prove who gives better head.”

Aoi shoved his chest with both hands. “You need to _stop_.”

It sounded joking, but there was an honest plea beneath it. Light left a comfortable pocket of space between them when he leaned away.

“Crosswalk’s blinking, c'mon.”

He followed Aoi’s quick pace to the end of the sidewalk and across the street.

In the midst of Aoi’s silence, Light absorbed the sounds and senses of the season. Christmas music faded in and out of his hearing as they passed storefronts aggressively catering to holiday shopping. The air had the crisp, dry scent of autumn fading into winter.

Aoi chose the quietest streets to traverse on his quest, but still Light found himself hearing the joy and the stress of passersby immersed in the holiday spirit. For a short period, they followed a mother and child, the latter of whom talked excitedly about the lights and the toys they wanted, while the mother persuaded them into keeping their voice down by reminding them that Santa was watching.

“She’s right,” Light whispered with a smile.

“We’re goin’ whatever way they’re not next corner,” Aoi grumbled.

After that clear indication of his mood, the only words they exchanged for the next five minutes were directional. He warned Light of turns and crosswalks and stated his intent to walk around slower pedestrians so that Light would fall into single file behind him. Light extracted something resembling conversation every time the sidewalk traffic grew a little thicker than usual, pretending he could not differentiate Aoi’s thick soles hitting the sidewalk from the plebeians’ shoes around them. “Voice, please,” he would say.

Aoi already knew the drill: speak in a steady stream about anything that came to mind. When he was more open, he would sometimes deign to talk about his own feelings, but usually he just gave a description of their surroundings, since Light was not privy to it, after all.

“Sun’s already set. Can’t see any stars yet, but the sky’s deep blue right now. It’ll be a pretty nice night for it, I bet. Might go out on the roof tonight if I…”

He trailed off before Light told him that the cloud of muddled sound had passed, usually signaled by a “Thank you,” or sometimes a cheeky, “Now keep talking just because I like you.”

There was finally a smile in Aoi’s voice when he said, “Hang on, babe.”

Light could write a dissertation on his feelings about the word _babe_.

Aoi had called him that by instinct within the third week of their casual courtship. Light, in response, mustered up the most disdainful frown he could and held it for no less than forty-five seconds as Aoi defended the pet name.

“It’s different when it’s gay, y’know?” he had protested. “Like, fuckboy calls his girl _babe_ , I wanna hit him over the head with a hammer as much as you. But when it’s gay, it’s like all those other things that’re better when it’s gay.”

“The sex?”

“A’ight, not on that scale. But just—those gross couple-y things, y’know? It’s better when it’s gay. It’s like we’re rubbin’ it in somebody’s face, look how fuckin’ gay I am, and this is my babe, and he’s gay, too.”

“It’s infantilizing. That’s the reason you dislike it when a so-called fuckboy uses it. He’s being implicitly misogynistic.”

“ _So_ , it’s better when it’s _gay_ , like I was _saying_.”

Arguing about it was not going to curb Aoi’s instinct to say it. He spent a couple of days referring to Light first as an uncertain, trailing “bae”, which revolted Light even further because it was vocabulary from embarrassing middle school days, and after that it was “Bailey’s Irish Cream” and “baked potato” and “Babe Ruth” and other such mutations and catches. “Baked potato” almost caught on.

Then, in the night, when kisses and touches escalated into something unstoppable, when Aoi Kurashiki was inside him for the first time, when they fit together like puzzle pieces emotionally, physically, morphogenetically—Light heard a breathy “babe” escape Aoi’s weak lips in wonder at that first moment of wholesome wholeness.

Ever since that moment, Light understood how much affection Aoi poured into that little, stupid word. And he could not help but smile when he heard it.

“Found your present for Clover. Pull over to the right a sec.”

His hand barely brushed Light’s back to lead him out of the way of foot traffic, but after being starved of touch for most of the walk, it felt like a breath of fresh air. They turned around to backtrack to the window.

“I ain’t serious about this, it’s just… it’s literally got pink four-leaf clovers on it,” he said. “It’s a hideous… purse, I guess? One of those handbags that looks like a mini duffel bag. It looks like the shittiest faux leather I’ve ever seen. White, so all the dirt shows. I’d get it as a gag gift, but it’s probably, like, thirty dollars or some pretentious shit.”

“If thirty dollars fell out of your pocket and blew away right now, you wouldn’t chase it.”

“Clover has so much crud in her room. She doesn’t need a shitty tiny duffel bag.”

Aoi’s hip brushed against Light’s hand as he backed away from the window. Light took his chances and took hold.

“Can I see it?” he asked softly.

Aoi shifted away from Light, but stayed in contact with his hand. “It’s ugly. I promise. I can send a picture to Clover if you want.”

“I’d like to see it, if you can show me.”

“I can try,” he mumbled. “We’re not good at this. I think I’m better with Clover than I am with you.”

They were both receivers. Despite Aoi’s closer emotional connection with Light, he found himself maintaining a more consistent morphogenetic conversation with Clover, a transmitter by nature. Every now and then, though, when Light tilted his soul towards Aoi as if turning his ear to a sound, if Aoi let his thoughts relax, they might bubble up in Light’s head.

“I’m listening,” Light murmured, shutting out the sounds of the streets.

Aoi leaned towards him.

The image was a hazy blur. He could not make out the clovers in the blotches of—

_—deep red, a blossoming garden of carnage in her chest. His hands were warm and wet and dark when he pulled them out from under what he now had to call her corpse—_

Aoi gave a physical jolt every time he found himself dipping into unpleasant territory from the morphogenetic field. It was a trained reflex, an attempt to force himself out of his head and back into the physical world. It had woken Light in the middle of every night when they first started sharing a bed, but he had gotten used to it since.

“Aoi, block out the field,” Light said.

“I’m blocking it!” he snapped. “I’m fucking blocking it! That’s why we’re going on this fucking walk!”

“Is there somewhere you can sit down?”

“We’re _walking_. Shut _up_.”

He stomped down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, though not fast enough to warrant the quickness of his breath. Light kept as close to him as he dared without risking treading on his heels. The body riddled with gunshot wounds from Aoi’s vision belonged to the one whose scarf Aoi had persuaded Light to wear.

“Last night,” Light said, more of a statement than a guess. “You SHIFTed. The mission failed in your—”

“ _Shut_ your _fuck_ , you complete piece of _shit_.”

“Does she know?”

“What kinda fuckin’ question is that? She always—” An elbow hit Light in the stomach and forced him away. “We’re not talking about this. I’m blocking it out. I’m blocking it out, I’m—”

“Focus on my voice,” Light said, keeping his tone smooth and even despite having to break into a jog to keep up with Aoi. “Watch the sidewalk in front of your feet. If you need a physical anchor—”

“I can’t, okay?! It’s not—”

Aoi landed only a glancing blow against Light this time. Neither of the motions had been wholly intentional. He was fighting off his phantom memories.

“Why did you go back to that timeline?” Light asked calmly, more of a statement than a question.

“Whaddya mean, why?! I ain’t fucking _trying_ to—”

Light found Aoi’s shoulder, gripped it tightly, and yanked on it to force him to stop. “Why are you still there?” he asked, more emphatically.

It was a line Aoi could not ignore, not after the seasoned insomniac had given the same brand of question to Light every time he woke in the middle of the night and claimed to not be able to get back to sleep. “Why’d you wake up?” Aoi would ask, half-asleep. “Why’re you still awake?”

Sometimes the answer was physiological—thirst, temperature, pain in the eyes or the arm. Sometimes it was a nightmare, and of those, there were the invented variety and those from the field, though they were difficult to distinguish. It was deceptively simple: after focusing on identifying and resolving the problem, sleep would return within minutes. Light did not know whether the logic would transfer to Aoi’s current struggle, but Aoi’s heavy sigh signaled that he was willing to try.

“I just—” Aoi’s shoulder jerked under Light’s hand, not to break free from the physical hold, but a morphogenetic one. “I can’t stop—thinking about—”

_Her._

“Fuck this. We’re not talking about this.” Aoi wrenched his shoulder away. “We’re walking. I’m blocking it out.”

“Call her,” Light said.

“I ain’t goin’ back in the—”

“Then pull out your cellphone, type in her number, and _call_ her,” Light ordered. “Aoi, I love you dearly, but you are terrible at treating your own emotional problems. You do not need a walk. You need to talk through this, and you need to know she’s alright while you do it. _Call_ her.”

“I don’t have my phone.”

Light, as usual, did not have his, either; he tended to misplace it for days at a time and not notice it was even gone. “Then let’s walk home and get your phone.”

“I don’t know how to get back, I’ve just been takin’ random turns to get away from people this whole time.”

The casually delivered words hit Light’s stomach a lot harder than they should have.

“You don’t… know,” he uttered, his face tight, “where we are. And you don’t have your phone.”

“It’s whatever. We’ll get back.” He did not even turn around to begin to retrace his steps. He walked onward.

Light failed to follow for a moment. His legs felt bloodless. His weight fell forward, attracted by Aoi’s gravity, and his right foot staggered to catch himself for the first step. The next few had scarcely more grace.

“If you had _told_ me you intended to get lost,” Light muttered, “I could have at least memorized the turns we took to get here.”

“Chill,” groaned Aoi. “I’ll figure it out. Ah, fuck, that’s a dead end.”

Light bristled further. The collar of his coat was shifting off of his neck as his shoulders climbed higher.

“Wait, shit, is that your pissed face or are you just cold?”

Light assessed himself internally and externally for a second. The outermost parts of his body felt distinctly colder than his core, which was hot and tight to the point of pain. “Both,” he decided.

“Are you _seriously_ mad at me just ’cuz we’re lost?”

“You realize you’ve placed me in an uncomfortable situation over which I have no control.”

“Oh, my God. Light. Babe.”

_Babe_ sounded infantilizing again. Light no longer wanted to hear the brightness of Aoi’s voice when he smiled.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I shoulda been paying attention, or I shoulda brought my phone, or something.” His hands settled on Light’s shoulders. “Just relax, okay? Breathe. I’m gonna get us home. It’s fine. You don’t even have to think about it. Just relax, follow me, and I’ll get us home. Look, if I don’t know where I am in the next fifteen minutes, we’ll go to a main road and hail a cab. Deal?”

“You have your wallet?” Light asked, exhaling.

“Yeah, ’cuz we were gonna shop for Clover. Everything’s under control. Promise.”

His hands slid down Light’s sleeves, but when he found the left one suddenly hollow, he slipped his hands around Light’s sides instead, and that felt too nice to not smile at.

“See? I know how to take care of my own problems,” Aoi joked. “Ignore ’em and take care of somebody else’s problems instead. Works every time.”

“Absolutely not. You are calling your sister the moment we get home.”

Aoi’s hands tensed up just before they left Light’s hips. His shoes scuffed against the concrete as he shuffled down the sidewalk. “That ain’t gonna help me block it out,” he mumbled.

“Blocking it out is clearly a temporary solution.” Light hovered close to Aoi’s side as they walked. “You need to accept your alternate memories in the same way you accept any unpleasant memory.”

“Ain’t this CBT shit? You know I don’t do the CBT shit.”

“Technically, it’s a subset, but it’s immediately effective,” he replied. “Instead of running away from the thoughts, you face them head on. You confront them without letting them hold any power over you, and come to peace with them in that way.” He found Aoi’s elbow when he reached out, and took hold of it. “But continue to block it out for now. Due to the… nature of the memory, I think it would be best if you did this with Akane present.”

Aoi sighed. “You saw it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Whoa, shit, wait—we actually found the park.”

He broke into an excited sprint. The cold air dried out Light’s lungs as he kept pace. He stepped onto ground that gave a little under his foot, though the soil had frozen too much to be called soft.

“Aw, this one’s so much nicer than downtown, I _knew_ it,” Aoi declared. “It’s on the river—moon’s in the water right now. It slopes down to the riverbed up ahead, if you wanna…”

Light smiled. “Whatever you’d like, dear,” he exhaled.

Aoi did not move at first except to reach for Light’s hand with a tentative touch. “Just for a little bit,” he promised.

“As long as you desire,” responded Light.

After another brief moment of hesitation, Aoi led them back to the sidewalk. They moved slowly over the uneven incline until Aoi lifted up Light’s hand and placed it on a cool railing. Wind sailed down the river and drifted into their faces, cold but fresh. The water lapped at the stone banks as it rolled past, choppy with ice, but still flowing.

“I shouldn’t’ve dragged you out here,” Aoi mumbled. “I’ve just been yellin’ at you to shut up the whole time ’cuz I’m in a shitty mood. And now we’re where we wanna be, and you can’t even see it. This whole thing was just you dealin’ with me bein’ a jerk with the added bonus of gettin’ to freeze your ass off.”

“I don’t mind,” Light said.

“Yeah, you do. You just ain’t gonna say it to my face ’cuz you have the patience of a fucking saint.”

Light smirked. “Perhaps.” He leaned his weary weight against Aoi’s shoulder. “I so often ask to hear your perspective when we go out together, but would you like to hear mine?”

Aoi paused. “I guess?”

Light removed his hand from the railing, disentangling it from Aoi’s fingers. He slid it across Aoi’s back to his opposite shoulder.

“I hear the river coursing beneath us,” he said. “There’s a crispness to the air as though the sky is on the cusp of snowing, though you’ve told me it’s a cloudless night. I feel the tranquility of winter and the mutual hope that this holiday will bring the same joy as we felt when we were children.”

His hand crept around Aoi’s shoulders. He loved the way Aoi felt against his chest in these peaceful moments, when he exhaled and leaned back, surrounded by Light.

“And I hear your voice,” Light whispered. “I listen to the world through the filter of your thoughts and feelings. I want to hear everything you have to tell me. I could never tire of your voice.”

Light’s hand trailed down Aoi’s chest from his shoulder. When his fingers latched onto Aoi’s hip, he heard Aoi’s breath hitch.

“Oh, and I certainly could never tire of that sound,” Light sighed with delight.

He lowered his head and pressed it close to Aoi’s, cheek against cold cheek. The contact was brief before Aoi turned around, pressing his face to Light’s shoulder. Light felt Aoi’s shudders with his whole body.

“Watch the river,” he said. “Ground yourself.”

 Aoi shook his head against Light’s coat. “I’m… I’m okay. You’re tryna get me to talk about it, right?”

“Only if you’re able.”

Aoi leaned a few inches away to undo the buttons on Light’s coat, then slid his arms inside. With a smile, Light wrapped him in the open coat and held him close. The river breeze crept into his core, but it was worth it to let Aoi in, as well.

“I hate when I SHIFT while I’m still alive, y’know?” he said in a weak voice. “Or maybe that’s weird. Most people get all fucked up about sending their other selves to go die in a new timeline outta nowhere, but like—it’s one fucking second, and then he’s dead. He wouldn’t even know what hit him. But when I fuckin’ throw him into—into _that_ , and he’s gotta live with—with her—without—”

Light pressed Aoi closer, resting his lips in soft, white hair. “Block it out until you can speak with her,” he coaxed. “She’s alright. You’re alright. Do you need a distraction?”

Aoi was breathing heavier again, trying to force relaxation into his body between the involuntary twitches. “I hate SHIFTing no matter what,” he muttered. “There’s always something stupid that’s different and it still fucks me up. Like, in this universe, Aoi’s favorite color is supposed to be red instead of blue, and that all snowballed into the fact that he wasn’t stupid enough to not check the room before she went in. I’m not that Aoi. I’m not _your_ Aoi.”

“We always change from one day to the next. We live and grow,” murmured Light. “You _are_ my Aoi. You are always my Aoi.”

Aoi fell still.

“Say… say that again.”

Light smiled. “My Aoi.”

His arms grew tighter around Light’s chest. “I’m gonna make you dinner when we get home,” he said, voice muffled by wool. “Whatever you want. I’ll make it.”

“Or we could stop in one of the three Chinese restaurants I smelled on our way here and bring something home.”

“You want Chinese? I’ll make Chinese.”

“That’s entirely unnecessary.”

“Shut up. You’re perfect and I wanna make you dinner.” He lifted one hand to Light’s chin, holding it steady while he planted a warm kiss on his jawline. “Let’s go home. I know where we’re at now, I’ll get us back in ten. I’ll fuckin’ carry you home.”

“ _That’s_ entirely unnecessary.”

“You’re leanin’ on me, babe. You’re tired as shit from all this walkin’ around, damn introvert.”

“Do not carry me or I will reflexively attempt to snap your neck.”

“You don’t when I warn you I’m gonna do it.”

“Do not carry me or I will _purposely_ attempt to snap your neck.”

“Alright, alright. Let’s quit bein’ so damn gay ’fore somebody else shows up.”

Despite the proclamation, Aoi took hold of Light’s hand to lead him back up to the streets. He shifted closer when red lights held them at street corners, wrapping his arm around Light’s waist from behind until the admittedly exhausted young man leaned against him for a moment of respite.

“I’ll carry you up the stairs,” he joked when they came to the apartment building.

“You will snap your _own_ neck.”

“ _Fine_. Elevator.”

They rarely used it, since they lived on the second floor of the complex. Light ran his gloved fingers over the buttons, feeling the raised shape of the numbers and letters in the top row until he found a 2. Aoi spent the duration of the rickety ride removing Light’s scarf to kiss his neck.

“Tofu or just veggie?” he asked, nose in Light’s hairline. “I’m thinkin’ fried rice.”

“Whichever is quicker,” Light sighed.

“Babe, I’m gonna carry you. Don’t break my neck.”

“Aoi—”

As the elevator slowed to a stop and gave a ding, Aoi yanked Light’s arm over his shoulder as he gripped Light around the ribs. The hit to the back of his knees still made Light tense up his arm, ready to squeeze the life out of the neck trapped in the crook of his elbow.

The floor came out from under his feet. Without sight and without touch, he lost his sense of place in the world, completely helpless. He could trust Aoi to bring him home.

 

 

“Hey. …No, don’t freak out, it’s fine. I just… Field’s tough. Since yesterday.”

Light set his book aside for Aoi again.

“You’re holdin’ up okay, right? Yeah. …Hang on, a blind pile of blankets is walkin’ over.”

He put his hand on Light’s shoulder, or at least on the two to three layers of fleece and flannel covering it, and kissed his cheek.

“What’s up, babe?”

Light shook his head. He wrapped his arm and his blankets around Aoi, who sighed with a smile.

“A’ight, I’m back. So… did you SHIFT yesterday or was it just me?”

Light could hear her voice from the receiver, though he did not try to make out the words.

“It was right when we got into the server room. Didn’t do a great perimeter check the first time.” Aoi let out a heavy sigh. “M’sorry.”

Light heard Akane berate his apologies.

“No, Akane, I let you down, okay? Just—I fucked up. You… you _died_. I was… I was supposed to protect you.”

“ _You did protect me,_ ” she said firmly. “ _You came back to protect me. Thank you, Aoi._ ”

Aoi curled into Light.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Yeah. …Love you, too. Thanks.”

The phone conversation trailed off into everyday pleasantries for another minute. Akane made him laugh once or twice. He did not leave the shelter of Light’s blankets when the call ended, nor did he speak. For a minute, there was only silence and warmth between them.

“Wasn’t I gonna remind you who gives better head?” Aoi mumbled.

Light chuckled. “I think we are both much too tired for that sort of nonsense tonight.”

“Mm. Yeah.”

Light ran his fingers along Aoi’s brow to feel for certain the confusion he sensed in his voice. It was as though Aoi could not have determined for himself that he was too tired without Light pointing it out.

“I guess,” he said slowly, “I just… wanna lie in a bed with you and kiss you a lot, maybe. S’that okay?”

Light lifted his hand from Aoi’s forehead and replaced it with the soft touch of his lips. “More than okay.”

When their lips locked together, the whole world fell away, just as it had the first time Aoi grabbed his face and gave in to the feelings that they had both been trying to ignore for years. There was the feeling of something rolling into motion inside their chests, that unstoppable force that pulled them closer and closer together. Sometimes it was fiery hot, igniting their senses and burning their sensibilities. And sometimes, like tonight, it was bare love: affection so infectious that all they knew how to feel was happy.


End file.
